


Breached

by Cardhamine



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Gore, No betas we lose our frontal lobes like Jeremy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Suggestive Themes, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28399101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cardhamine/pseuds/Cardhamine
Summary: Vanny transfers onto the Pizzaplex security team in January; so does Vanessa “Ava” Andros, a blonde night guard who knows nothing about the Fazbear reputation. William Afton, "alive" again thanks to the digital vessel Glitchtrap, plans to seal his murderous legacy with Vanny's help, whether she likes it or not. His control over her grows stronger as each day passes, and she won't be able to save anyone's life without help.
Relationships: Night Guard (Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach)/Reluctant Follower (Five Nights at Freddy's)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	1. Fortuitous (?) Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> \- I'm making many leaps, assumptions, and even some changes with this rendition of the FNAF universe. Please understand that I am not trying to be accurate, just wanting to paint a fun adventure for those of us who ship Vanguard.  
> \- I'm also completely fine knowing that the game itself will likely contradict many or all assumptions or headcanons I stick in here, and I'm okay with that. I'll keep writing this AU even after the game comes out.  
> \- Assumptions to note before I start: Vanny and Vanessa are two separate people; Vanny has already caused all the chaos that occurred in the leaked AR emails, and she has requested a transfer from Fazbear Entertainment Office to the Pizzaplex. She is already credentialed at the Pizzaplex.  
> \- William's influence or direct words are in **bold.**  
>  \- I think that's all! Thank you for checking this out. Notes from now on will be at the bottom.

**Date: Saturday January 30th, 9:50 PM  
Location: ???  
Weather: Snowing  
**

Consciousness came to Vanny suddenly, followed by a thick confusion, then a vertigo which flipped her world sideways, and finally a bolt of pain as her left elbow collided with solid, cold pavement. Blearily, she rolled to her back and forced her tired eyes open.  


Where..? Where was she?  


A black void stared back at her like a unsympathetic, gaping maw. Her hazel eyes focused, and the void filled in with glittering, shimmering stars. A fog drifted upwards into the night sky. She idly watched it float heavenward while slowly realizing it was not fog but her breath in the frozen December air. Soft, crystalline flakes danced down onto the tip of her nose. Icy cold bit at the uncovered skin of her wrists and neck, chasing away the haze of her mind until it was clear like a crystal lake.  


Ah, she had blacked out and wandered back to work past hours again.  


With her memories returned to her, she idly considered the pros and cons of allowing herself to give in to her exhausted body’s urge to remain there on the ice-covered parking lot until the biting air froze the oxygen in her lungs and her body stilled for good, left as a morbid snow angel for someone to stumble upon in the morning. Unfortunately and so like enchanting daydreams are wont to do, this one remained a daydream, as her serious consideration was cut off abruptly by the sound of a voice piercing the cold air.  


“Ma’am?” Hurried, clumping, snow-crunching bootsteps preceded the shadow of whoever it was coming to tower over her. Her mild expression remained as she, without moving her head, glanced into the worried green eyes of a woman now mid-kneel. The uniformed woman’s blonde hair, pulled loosely into a ponytail, flowed over her left shoulder as she leaned over Vanny’s prone form. Vanny didn’t respond, just watched dully as pale fingers probed for a pulse at her wrist. A penlight was magicked from somewhere into the blonde’s left hand, and she quickly passed the light through Vanny’s vision to assess pupillary response.  
Finding everything physiologically normal, she finally addressed Vanny face-to-face.  


“Are you okay?”  


Stunned, staring silence was all that came from the brunette’s cold-chapped lips. Unsure, not-computing silence. ‘No, I am most definitely not okay,’ she wanted to say, but then that ringing that ringing THAT RINGING and her mouth was opening independent of her, **“Yes, I’m fine. Just slipped on my way through the lot.”**  


_‘FUCK,’_ her own voice cried out frustratedly in the echo chamber of her mind. After all this time, the ‘not-her-voice’ which responded was no longer a surprise. There were two modes for this other voice, his voice, which she once trusted but no longer felt quite so safe in the company of. One mode was purely conversational, just another mind there, crammed into her skull so tightly she felt like they would suffocate there together; the second mode, the one she felt drilling against her left parietal lobe now, was an order, not like a command but like an override, as if her emotions were just a program capable of being overwritten with new code. **‘I’m fine.’** Her body believed it and responded in kind; serotonin and dopamine released, then the tension in her muscles followed suit. She hated the conscious feeling of her feelings being replaced, the horrifying moments between her body believing the order and her mind accepting it. Of course, if she pushed back, it only beat against her consciousness harder, only turned the awful buzzing that accompanied it up another ten decibels in her brain.  


**‘I’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’m-----'  
**

“I’m so relieved,” the nightguard murmured, though Vanny hardly paid it mind. There was silence in her head again. Even the distant background sounds of tires on slush hushed until it she was hyperaware of the quiet, almost non-sound of fat chunks of snow landing on her head and on the cold ground she was still sitting on. Suddenly, she was even MORE hyperaware of how long the blonde must have been crouching there, gloved hand outstretched and ugh, she must look like a crazy person. Ha! Look like one? She was one! Vanny took the woman’s hand and pulled herself- Rephrase. She took the woman’s hand and was pulled up. Woah, this woman was strong. The brunette gave her a once over, and, sure enough, that security guard getup was one of theirs – Fazbear industry property. She would know the bear on that logo anywhere. She cleared her throat instinctively, knowing the bile would be coming up anytime now.  


“-realize anyone was still working this time of night except for me.” A soft laugh. A genuine laugh. Had the woman been talking? Yes, and there was that bile rising up her throat. She needed to get away. Soft, genuine people were easy picking for-  


**“Oh, of course.”** A performative laugh forced itself out of her throat. She wanted to scream. **“I’ll be honest.”** Lie incoming. **“I would get in big trouble if my boss found out, but I forgot to shut down my computer before leaving this afternoon, and – Oh,”** As if suddenly realizing it, as if the stupidly brilliant rabbit hadn’t carefully planned his explanation before even opening her mouth, he reached down – using Vanny’s hand, she noted furiously – and withdrew her Fazbear Family Employee ID from her jeans. He handed it to the security guard, an embarrassed grin puppeteered onto Vanny’s face. **“I should’ve mentioned – I work here!”** The self-conscious giggle that bubbled from her throat sounded like her, at least. With a click the penlight was out again; apparently, the woman took her security job quite seriously; otherwise, what reason would she have for scrutinizing the badge so carefully?  


In that quiet moment, Vanny felt a familiar presence grow behind her as if materializing from nowhere. _‘Not from nowhere,’_ she reminded herself bleakly, a far cry from how she once felt about the thoughts that followed, _‘Mr. Afton is always with me.’_ And with her he was, though his current form was nothing like she had imagined during years of idolizing the robotics genius she had modeled her entire life path after. No, the visage of an aging English gentleman was scrapped (haha) with his body somewhere in the charred wreckage of an abandoned building, but the remnants of his warped intentions had birthed the phantom looming beside her, the haunting figure of a cartoonish golden hare, purple eyes glowing like neon signs as he caught the two in his ever-calculating stare.  


**‘Unfortunate, this. I had so hoped to get a closer look at the wiring of the newer models unbothered tonight.’** His words filled her mind. He tsked, and Vanny relaxed, relieved that he wasn’t more upset at the change of plans. She spared a millisecond’s glance in his direction.  


‘I’m sorry, Mr. Afton.’  


**‘Not to worry, Vanny. Misfortune can be twisted into fortune easily when one plays one’s cards right. Take note of the unexpected opportunity we have before us, for example: this is the new hire, is it not?’**  


Vanny finally allowed herself to give the woman before her a good look. Yes, she had seen the woman before – or at least her image. As a (however recent) member of the pizzaplex security team herself, Vanny had been informed of the new arrival last week; in fact, she had done some of the woman’s background check when Luis became too overworked to finish it before deadline, though she couldn’t remember anything about the woman aside from how little there was to remember. The woman had such a squeaky-clean history that it was almost suspicious, but even with a second and third run-through, everything checked out; she was just a quiet, law-abiding citizen who had been born and raised in this city.  


Oh, William had asked a question. She should answer. _‘Yes, she is.’_  
The she in question, by the way, was handing Vanny’s card back over with a formal smile. 

“Allow me to escort you inside then, Ms. Ando.”  


**‘It may be worthwhile to ingratiate yourself to her.’**  


“Vanny,” her own name was spilling from her lips before she even realized. “We’ll be working together, security team and all,” she explained hurriedly, then continued, “so there’s no need to be so formal. Just call me Vanny.” It seemed like no time had passed, and yet they had already arrived at the pizzaplex’s security entrance. The blonde was already entering in her credentials. A playful smirk grew on her face, and Vanny wondered if she had said something funny.  


“Vanny it is.” The woman’s voice had a soothing, deep timbre, Vanny caught herself noting. She felt a knot in her gut as the woman held the door open for her, smile still in place, and she stepped past, catching a whiff of a sweet cologne as she did. It was a nice smell. The knot in her gut tightened. William chuckled.  


**‘I’ll leave you to it, then, Dear. Mind yourself, though. I would hate to have to step in.’** His presence faded into a weight in the back of her skull. The blonde was taking her place there where he had been, her arms folded behind her as she took in the dark building for what was likely the first time.  


“Well then, Vanny,” the blonde reached up to adjust the black cap of her uniform and shot a gentle smile over at her. A new knot formed in her chest. “Where should I escort you next?”


	2. I'd Like To Know Your Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Work at the pizzaplex is work at the pizzaplex. Luis drops by to see Ness at work. Vanny and the security guard get to know each other a little better after switching out shifts one stormy night. (Things aren't gay enough for this author yet, but we're working on it.)

**Tuesday, February 2nd, 6:15 AM, Overcast**

Vanny enjoyed the sound of gravel beneath her feet. She liked to listen to it crunch each morning on her walk to the side road she took to work. This morning was so cold that she was actually hurrying instead of breathing in the morning air, like she usually enjoyed. Surely if she tried that today the air would crystallize in her lungs. With a red-cheeked, pink-nosed smile, she puffed out a breath and watched it float up to join the clouds. This morning was nice, despite the cold; for the first time in a while, it was silent. 

After all, William wasn’t there. 

Sometimes he wasn’t there lingering over her shoulder. No, he went away for hours upon hours sometimes, usually during the day and especially after nights when he had been particularly active. Vanny had decided that his spirit got too tired to exert itself, that he had to go and rest in the far recesses of her mind after several long hours pushing his will on her. She liked these "afterward" times; it almost felt like things were how they had always been. Occasionally she tried to trick herself into thinking it was all a bad dream, but she could never quite believe it. She consoled herself with the knowledge that she could have a little time to herself, at least, to make the most out of her conscious hours. 

Ugh, thinking about it was getting depressing. She hopped onto her skateboard and set off towards the pizzaplex, focusing instead on what color to paint Roxanne’s claws this week. She was pretty sure the wolf was growing tired of lime green… 

**Tuesday, February 2nd, 6:27 AM, Pizzaplex Security IT Room**

Vanny had settled on purple nail polish by the time she had clocked in. The unfortunate fluorescent lighting inside was a stark and uncomfortable contrast to the barely waking sky outside; luckily, only she and one other employee were subjected to it. The blonde security guard who had helped her up off the frozen asphalt two nights before now half-sat, half-slumped against the security desk, eyes glazing over as she fought a losing battle against sleep to remain vigilant. In fact, it wasn’t until Vanny cleared her throat that the woman even noticed there was someone else in the same room as her. Jumping slightly, she darted her green eyes over to the newcomer before relaxing slightly. 

“Oh, Vanny. Good morning,” she yawned and stretched, and it sounded as if each vertebra in her spine popped back into place at once. 

“Look who’s still awake,” Vanny grinned in her direction as she unbuckled her skateboarding helmet.  


“You seem in much better spirits today,” Blondie noted with a subdued smile. Darkness rimmed her eyes; she must almost be done with her shift. Vanny returned the smile, trying not to seem too pitying of the obviously exhausted figure in front of the cameras.  


“Well, when compared to how I felt after slipping on ice…” She shrugged agreeably, setting her skateboard and helmet against the lockers as usual. “Hey, actually, there’s something that might help you.” She popped over to the station and gently pushed against the blonde’s shoulder to take control of the keyboard; her coworker watched her with intrigue as she inputted a few simple keyboard commands, prompted black boxes to pop up then quickly vanish from the screens, then moved back to observe. There was a quiet ‘ping’, and one of the camera feeds was outlined in neon pink; if that wasn’t obvious enough, in the corner popped up a tiny computer-generated figure of “Helpy”, the lovable menu screen mascot from all of the pizzaplex’s arcade games. Both women stared at the tiny camera feed as a figure in Fazbear uniform strolled up to the outer Employees’ Only entrance and badged in.  


“Oh, wooow,” the blonde’s exclamation turned into another bleary yawn, and Vanny couldn’t help but grin. “That’s going to be really helpful. This place is huge; I’ve done security work for years, but I'm not used to so many screens.” She started poking at the keyboard herself. “Does it do anything else?”  


“You need to go home and sleep,” the brown-eyed girl patted her on the back. “I’ll email you the other functions. Can’t believe Scott didn’t send you the manual. Sometimes I swear he’s out to get the nightguards.”  


The blonde nodded and stood on wobbly legs. “Thank you. I’ll get used to night shift soon,” she grumbled as she walked over to the lockers to dig for her belongings before continuing, “but, ah, was there a mistake? I saw your name on dayshift AND nightshift on the schedule.”  


“That’s no mistake,” Vanny corrected, already dropping into the still-warm chair the security guard had just left and dragging the cursor to swap accounts. “Oh, hey - Always make sure to log out of your account so no one uses your credentials fraudulently,” she tossed in quickly, and the blonde blubbered a tired apology. Vanny tossed her a humored smile. “No worries, Sleeping Blondie,” she chuckled, “but anyway, like I was saying, I’m changing over to nightshift full-time in the next couple of months, so they’re changing my job duties slowly. You know, dragging the change out slowly and painfully instead of ripping the sleep schedule band-aid off easy.” A drowsy snort from the other side of the room left Vanny feeling satisfied with herself.  


“See you later,” Sleeping Blondie called out from halfway out the door, and Vanny noted the still low, now gravely timbre of her voice with a flutter in her gut. “And thank you again for your help.”  


“No problem. See you,” she replied, though her eyes were already glued to her screen, fingers tapping almost violently at the keys so she could check the running conditions on the band before they began their first performance of the day. Chica’s hydraulic reservoir fluid levels were low; no wonder her temperature was abnormally high.  


“Ness?” A man’s voice cut through her concentration, but she didn’t look up; she knew who it was.  


“We need to raise HF to required levels on Chica before the next show. We’ve been filling them for all four at the same times and to the same levels, right? I’m going to need to manually inspect her heat exchanger and the other cooling circuit components, because-“ She glanced over and froze up. She hated when Luis looked at her like that, like she was the warmth from a fireplace at the first peaceful moment after an exhaustively enjoyable winter day. The look soured her stomach when she remembered she was less a charming fire and much more the image conjured by that last match the Little Match Girl couldn’t sell.  


The freezing girl in question, or rather, her modern counterpart, spoke again. “You’re busy doing the robotics technician’s job again.” Affection in his smile twisted her guts again, and she remembered in hallucinogenic detail the nightmares of Luis’s limp body, always in different but equally sickening contortions, always dripping with more blood than he could’ve possibly contained while alive.  


The nightmares only began after she had reached out for help; just one word in a search engine had conjured violent but silent threats – or so she had finally come to terms with. Initially, she had fought even the passing notion that William was the monster everyone had claimed, but the evidence was too stacked now; her delusion of him had soured. Despite his tuts when she woke up screaming, no matter the way he would reach to paternally wipe her sweat-slick forehead (not like she could feel it), regardless of his soft tone as he hushed her cries, she knew he was the one who had planted the nightmares in her mind. He had put them there as a warning, and the warning was clear: reach out to anyone again, and their blood will be on your hands.  


“Ness? Earth to Ness!” She snapped out of her reverie to Luis’s face (just a little too close) in hers, concern marking his features. She blinked and focused her gaze on his, and he seemed to relax. “You’re doing that an awful lot lately, you know. You okay? I keep emailing you about it, but you must not be receiving the emails or something.” He forced out a pain-laced chuckle. She grimaced.  


“Yeah, sorry. I’m …” She could feel the uncomfortable stir of William trying to force her response as he had the other night with Blondie, as he did any time Vanny wasn’t painting the picture he wanted. She let out a huff and began to speak again, preferring to follow the ghost’s script than to allow him control over her lips. “I’m fine,” she lied. “I’m really tired lately,” she said honestly, “and I have a lot on my mind. I’m sorry I keep ignoring your emails.” She mulled over her next words carefully and decided overly candid was the best direction to go in. “I’m not good with people showing me genuine concern.” Okay, so the self-conscious smile she sent his way was a little hammed-up, but she really wanted him to drop the subject once and for all.  


If her acting was poor, you wouldn’t be able to tell by the audience’s reaction. Luis’s eyes were wide, sparkling intensely.  


“Of course. I knew that was it. Oh, that’s such a relief – not that I thought you were ignoring me because you were a bad person or because you were responsible for the virus issues, I just – You know what? That doesn’t matter now. Thank you for opening up to me, Ness,” the last sentence left his lips with a theatricality that almost made her cringe. If his heart weren’t in the right place (probably?), she wouldn’t be able to stand him. Because it was, she just huffed out a belabored sigh and cracked a wry smile.  


“Thanks for listening, Luis.”  


“Oh! That reminds me!” Luis’s brown eyes widened even further, and he reached down to dig through the backpack he had brought in with him, quickly retrieving a well-wrinkled 12x12 bubble mailer, obviously overstuffed and addressed to Vanny from a crafting supply depot. “The fabric you had ordered! You never picked it up after the transfer. That’s why I’m here! I’m actually probably going to be a little late getting back to corporate,” he chuckled, still beaming.  


“That doesn’t get you extra points,” Vanny playfully noted, taking the package from him. He stalled for a moment, then laughed again.  


“Hey, I just wanted to help a friend. I’m assuming we’re friends,” he quickly added, casting a questioning glance her way.  


“Of course we’re friends, Luis.” She watched as he beamed so hard his face could’ve split in two.  


“Speaking of, what’s the fabric for? Sewing project?” He was inching forward with every word as if trying to get a better look at the package (as if he hadn’t had it in his possession the last two weeks). Vanny froze. The less Luis knew about this, the better for both of them. Should she lie to him? She should definitely lie.  


“It’s … for a prototype costume for one of the employees here at the pizzaplex. We thought it would be neat to have a normal old mascot uniform an employee could wear to interact with kids at parties again.” Her expression hardened as her nails dug in to the manila packaging, feeling the soft fabric underneath and wishing she could rip it into shreds here and now.

“Oh, neat! I didn’t know you could sew, too. You’re really talented, Ness. What kind of mascot are you thinking?” 

“… Probably a rabbit.” 

**Wednesday, February 10th, 2:55 AM, Hailing**

Vanny felt lucky that she hadn’t been beaned by a ball of ice on her way into work. Her relief was just the opposite of the blonde security guard’s dread at facing the same cold onslaught. 

Her lips pursed tightly when she laid her eyes on the feed from the loading dock. “Yeah, I was hoping it would be done by now. My bed isn’t just calling me, it’s practically screaming.” A drawn-out groan rumbled from deep in her chest as she practically melted onto the desk. 

Vanny responded with a playful roll of her eyes. “Complain all you want, but you’ve been safe in here while I was dodging frozen meteors so that you could get off work.” She hopped up onto the desk next to Blondie and gave the tired guard a supportive pat on the head, for which she earned a rueful smile. 

“Were you hit?” Concern filled Blondie’s voice. 

"Nah, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to need a new umbrella after this.” Playfully grieved, she gestured towards the hail-worn tool by the door. 

“It served its country proudly.” Blondie mimed pouring a shot onto the ground, and both women broke out into helpless giggles. After catching her breath, she let out a sigh. “I don’t feel like braving the weather. I’ll camp out here until it’s cleared up, as long as you don’t mind.” 

“Won’t someone worry if you don’t get home?” 

Blondie looked befuddled, then understanding washed over her face. “Oh, no, I live alone.” 

**‘Intriguing,’** William mused. Vanny ignored the discomfort that word washed over her. 

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed,” she murmured bashfully, “And, no, I don’t mind at all. It’s nice having the company.” 

**‘Unless I have maintenance on one of the animatronics planned,’** William grumbled, though he seemed resigned. **“Patience is a virtue,”** he murmured, seemingly to himself. Vanny ignored him. Her eyes grazed over the security desk; the other guard hadn’t brought any personal effects in, unless a double espresso energy drink counted. 

“Those are awful for a person, you know,” she jokingly snarked. There was silence, then the slightest sound of soft snoring. She glanced over to the other woman, who had laid her head on her arms and dozed off. Vanny couldn’t help a charmed half-smirk at the exhausted woman. She shucked off her coat and dropped it over the blonde’s shoulders before pulling up a second chair and propping her legs up for a quiet night. At least this way William couldn’t get up to anything odd, she supposed. 

**Wednesday, February 10th, 5:15 AM, Snow/Hail Mix**

_“Okay, so I know I said earlier in the tutorial that a whip-stitch is best for basic pieces, but in a joint section like at the shoulder, you’re going to want to use something a little more advanced if you want to avoid stitches coming undone when you’re moving around. So. What you’re gonna want to do is-“_

Movement to her left took Vanny’s attention away from the video on her phone, and she pulled the headphone out of her left ear as she turned to the just-waking woman next to her. She eyed the clock. “Quite the nap, Sleeping Blondie. A whopping two and a half hours.” 

She got a grunt in response, then what seemed to be furious scrubbing of drool off the side of a cheek. Vanny smirked and put her phone away. The gravely quality of the blonde’s voice as she mumbled something else sent an odd fluttering in the noirette’s gut, and she cursed herself. 

‘I’m starting to think I have a thing about women with deep voices,’ she thought with some self-directed agitation.

**‘You most definitely do.’** She could almost feel the rumble of William’s deep chuckle in the back of her mind, and she huffed internally. 

‘Please, Mr. Afton, no teasing.’ He responded with a humored laugh and his presence lessened some. It reminded her of their relationship before she had realized – well, before she had realized a lot of things, really. 

“Are you going to call me Sleeping Blondie forever?” Finally having shaken away her REM-induced stupor, the other guard was now popping the stiffness out her back and neck and shoulders. 

“Oh, right.” Vanny smiled apologetically. “You know, I’m really sorry, but still don’t know your name.” 

Sleeping Blondie seemed to hold back a laugh. “Actually, funny enough, it’s Vanessa.” 

‘Same name.’ Vanny blinked. 

**‘Same name.’** William mused, and Vanny could practically hear the cogs whirring in his (her) head. 

“Don’t worry,” other Vanessa laughed softly, “This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. Call me Ava? I’ve already introduced myself to the rest of the team that way, after all. Didn’t think there was room for two Vannies in this office.” She winked one pretty green eye, and Vanny felt heat rise to her cheeks. 

“Ava,” she tested the name out on her lips. It felt right. She returned the other woman’s smile. “Ava it is, then.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vanny's feelings can be summed up with the following sentence: "Luis, dude, you are a very nice, genuine guy, but I can not seem to explain to you that I am not attracted to you."  
> I based Ava's feelings about Luis on MY feelings about Luis. So. That'll come up eventually. (: (: (:


	3. Adults Can't Be Trusted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ava has a busy weekend at work, and she meets a young man who spends way too much time at the pizzaplex. Not only that, she gets her first look at those animatronics she's heard so much about.

**Saturday, February 20th, 5:45 AM, Light Flurries  
**

Ava was getting used to third shift, she swore she was. Even as she blinked the spots from her vision and fought back the fifth yawn in the same number of minutes, she thought to herself how much better she felt after a shift than when she had initially started. With Vanny’s help, she had been able to get a handle on keeping up with the security system, which was much more advanced than anything she had worked with prior. To be honest, this job was at least twice as difficult as anything she’d worked before just from the expanse of what needed to be guarded alone, not to mention how complex the security system was or how this was her first time working such late hours. Though she wasn’t concerned about whether or not she could handle it, she wouldn’t have been interested in jumping into something so challenging if it weren’t for the pay raise. Fazbear Entertainment wasn’t usually known for providing adequate payment for services rendered, but this job had offered an extra $10 hourly over what she had made at her last job, and she wasn’t going to pass that offer up.  


Ava knew almost nothing about Fazbear Entertainment as a company aside from the fact that they were pretty famous worldwide. She had never been to one of their pizzerias as a child, nor had she paid attention to the news during any of their scandals. She’d never been very interested in animals or animal mascots when she was young, so she couldn’t name a single one of the beloved characters which had become household names in recent years. Not that she needed to know any of those things to keep the place safe and secure. Of course, with the fanaticism of a lot of kids (and even some adults) about the company and its characters, sometimes she did feel curious.  


At very least, she wondered why so many parents would pay such prices to see a “live” band of animatronics. They knew the robotic voices were pre-recorded, right?  


There was a small chime, and Helpy popped up in the corner of one of the outside camera feeds. Blinking the fuzziness from her eyes, Ava leaned in to see what had triggered the motion sensors. She stared at the second customer lot, which was still empty. On the feed next to it, the employee parking lot, a couple cars had joined hers, likely one employee coming in early to ready things for opening at 8 AM and whoever was coming to take over her shift in ten more minutes. Had one of them somehow triggered the other feed? No, those cameras were at least one hundred feet from each other, if she remembered right. But there wasn’t anything on the customer lot 2 feed that should have triggered it. Maybe it was an animal?  


Ava couldn’t shake the feeling, so when she was relieved from work ten minutes later, she made a beeline towards the back exit just to check things out. A wall of icy wind and stray snowflakes rushed past her as she pushed open the heavy metal doors and squinted out into the cold air. A sudden shriek to her right made her take a defensive step back, and her hair whipped against her as she turned quickly to look for the source of the sound.  


There, next to the emergency exit doors, now flopped on his backside on the snow-covered cement, was a well-bundled elementary schooler. He blinked up at Ava with chocolate-brown eyes. Next to him sat a lazy-eyed tabby cat who was preoccupied with something at the boy’s feet. Ava frowned and crouched in front of him.  


“Are you alright?”  


The boy looked away from her, embarrassment clear on his already cold-blushed cheeks. “I’m fine. Just surprised by the door, is all,” he grumbled, picking himself up quickly and wiping the snow from his pants. His exposed skin was pale, his nose and ears pink from contact with the wind, and Ava felt at a loss.  


“No, I meant –“ she searched for the right words. What did you say in a situation like this? She wasn’t good with words, so she decided to just be direct. “Are you lost? Do you need me to call someone?”  


As if the consideration was absolutely ridiculous, the kid shook his head furiously. “No! No, I was just waiting for the doors to open. Mom was in a rush today, or she would’ve badged me in like usual. Plus I needed to feed Ralpho.” He glanced at the brown tabby who Ava now noticed was greedily scarfing down the contents of a tuna can.  


“Ralpho is a cute name for a cat,” she said, still trying to figure out what to do about the situation. His mom would’ve badged him in? Was she an employee here?  


“It’s the name of one of the rabbits from the Fazbear Frights books,” the boy muttered sheepishly.  


“Well, I think it fits him,” Ava smiled, then pulled herself up. A gust of icy wind grazed her neck, and she shivered. “Let’s go inside. I can’t handle the thought of you being out here in the cold.” The boy picked up his backpack and reoriented itself, nodding his thanks to her. She scanned her badge, unlocking the emergency exit and shepherding the young man into the warmth of the pizzaplex. “Did you say your mom works here?” He nodded, then, after screwing up his face in thought, shook his head.  


“Not here. But for the company.” He was a soft-spoken kid. He also didn’t like making eye-contact, it seemed.  


“Seems like you stay here a lot if you have a cat here,” the nightguard mused, hoping to pull a little more of his situation out of him. He huffed.  


“Not my cat; I just named him, and I feed him sometimes,” the boy countered. After a moment, he added, “Mom... lets me stay here when she’s working.” Ava couldn’t decide how she felt about that, but she suddenly realized that she was following the boy down the building’s hallways and not the other way around. He had pulled a handheld game station out of his backpack and was maneuvering without even looking. In no time, he had lead them to a small side room with the door placard, ‘Party Room 6‘. Ava peeked inside after him.  


When he flipped the lightswitch, Ava could see why he had chosen that room to camp out in. It was a tiny, cozy room, holding just one seven foot table, several folding chairs, a screen for playing movies, and one cushioned armchair. Though the armchair didn’t match the decor exactly, everything else made sense for a party room; although, it looked like this room hadn't been rented out in quite some time, and apparently it hadn't been cleaned in that time, either. Still, the kid seemed perfectly comfortable plopping down in the armchair, game station in hand, as if he had done it a million times. Ava was starting to think he probably had.  


"And, just so we're on the same page, your mom does know where to find you when she gets off work?" The boy looked up from his game and nodded. "And there are other employees you know here who you can go to if you need help?" He hesitated.  


"I mean, I know where the security office is."  


Ava frowned. "Okay, that's not going to fly. Here." She whipped out her phone and pulled up her contacts. "You have a phone, right? Let me give you the direct number to the security office." In a way Ava would describe only as "dutifully", the child dug through his backpack to retrieve his own phone and added the information to his contacts. “My name is Ava Andros, I'm a night guard here. You can always ask for me if there’s trouble. I’m not a dayshift employee, but I’m usually around in the mornings. And would you mind sharing your mother’s number? In case of emergency, but only if you feel safe giving it." She handed her phone to him so he could add the contact information in.  


"... Thank you, Ma’am." He was a soft-spoken kid, but she thought she heard real gratitude in his practiced, formal thanks. She smiled. Her phone pinged just after he handed it back, and she glanced down at the new text that popped up.  


**Gregory ʕ•̀ω•́ʔ✧::mom’s number is XXX-384-5246, her name is Hannah  
**

"You're very welcome, Gregory." In no time, she had saved his mother’s information in her contacts..  


Suddenly, Gregory patted his own head, brows furrowing, then he seemed to quietly panic.  


“What’s the matter?” Ava frowned, slipping her phone back into her pocket.  


Gregory had stood up to check beneath himself, then dug through his backpack anxiously. “My beanie! It’s gone!”  


Ava bent down to peek under the armchair for the hat; no luck. “Did you drop it when you fell outside? I didn’t notice it.”  


Gregory groaned. “I must’ve!” He fell back into the chair and seemed to shrink into himself, pressing even deeper into the chair.  


Ava was already turning to walk out the door as she stated, “I’ll go get it for you.”  


“No!” Gregory cried out, and she paused, turning back. “...No, it’s okay. I don’t want to be in the way of you getting home.” He seemed to wilt even more by the second. “I just … Feel better with my hat.”  


Ava bit her lip, wracking her brain for a compromise. “Will you be back tomorrow morning?”  


“… Yeah?”  


“Then what about this: You borrow my hat. I’m leaving the building that way anyway, so I’ll pick up your beanie on the way out and bring it back when I come in for my shift tonight. How’s that? And I’ll leave it right here for you so you can pick it up when you come in tomorrow morning, alright?”  


Gregory mulled it over with furrowed brows, picking silently at his phone's hard plastic case; then, he glanced up at her and nodded sheepishly. Ava smiled a brilliant smile and pulled off her hat to nestle it onto his messy mop of hair. He pulled it down just a bit, as if to hide himself beneath the cap. "Thanks," he muttered again. Ava put her phone away.  


"Hey, you're very welcome, Gregory. Remember to call the security office if you need help, okay? You can even call me if they don't pick up. But for now... I'm going to head out before I fall asleep standing up." She chuckled sleepily and gave him a little wave, which he returned before she walked away.  


A few minutes later, as she was leaning down outside the emergency exit doors to pick up a water-logged, half-frozen green toboggan, her phone let out one more ping, which she glanced down at.  


**Gregory ʕ•̀ω•́ʔ✧: "ʕ ·ᴥ·ʔb thx agn for hat. mom wd b rlly mad if I lost it. "  
**

**Ava (Faz Security): "That's what security guards are for - protecting kids everywhere from getting grounded. 👍👍👍"**

**Saturday, February 21st, 5:30 AM  
**

Pizzaplex employees usually began coming in for work around 5:15 AM. Each had an individual employee number assigned and a card which allowed them in whichever facilities they had approved access to. Security team members have access to all parts of the pizzaplex with their card keys, but they were also tasked with assuring that the card keys being used were actually in the hands of their original owners. That morning, Ava was keeping an eye on the employees as they came, making sure their card profiles matched their faces. That was how she figured out who Gregory’s mother was.  


Apparently she worked at Fazbear Entertainment Head Office which was fifteen minutes away from the pizzaplex, deeper in the city. She was in a management position, and there was little the other employees could say about her treating the pizzaplex like a daycare. Anything Gregory ate was billed to her employee account, and he could play unlimited arcade games or rounds of minigolf with his mother’s key card (as a family member); on top of that, he seemed like a quiet kid, so Ava doubted he made enough of a stir to cause any complaints from pizzaplex staff, anyway.  


The night before, Ava had texted the boy’s mother, providing her contact information and assuring her that Gregory was in good hands under her watch. Though Hannah had been receptive enough, it rubbed Ava the wrong way when she apologized for Gregory “causing a disruption” for the night guard, even going so far as to say how “troublesome” the boy could be when there was business to be done. Once the conversation was over, Ava felt she had a good grasp on their mother-son relationship, and she wasn’t very fond of it.  


Ava was an only child, but she had always wanted a younger sibling. There was something fulfilling about the thought of watching over not just the general population of kids who came and went through the pizzaplex but keeping a protective eye over one in particular, especially one like Gregory who, if Ava’s suspicions were correct, needed a little extra support from a well-meaning adult. She would be happy to be that adult if need be.  


The morning crept on. Ava assumed Gregory would come by to return her hat on the way to his hideout in party room #6 that morning, but when the end of her shift came at 6 AM and she hadn’t seen him, she quickly scoured the cameras and found him loitering around on the darkened main stage in the concert hall. Not a safe place for a kid to be hanging out. As she hurriedly made her way there, her mind listed the dangers brought by the hulking, metal animatronics; she picked up the pace as the list grew.  


There were five ways into the main concert hall - three sets of double doors and two smaller doors behind the stage. It was used for a lot of events, both private and public, but mostly the animatronics were stored in it during their downtime between performances. As such, only security and higher-authorization employees like management had access to any of the doors, for the safety of the animatronics (the very, very expensive animatronics) - or so it had been explained to Ava. She keyed in to one of the smaller, backstage doors just because it was the closest.  


She entered the darkness of the backstage and suppressed a shudder. With all the curtains and stage parts, it was nearly impossible to see. Why was Gregory hanging out in such a creepy place? Ava pulled out her penlight and opened her mouth to call for him, but a quiet murmuring from ahead caught her words in her throat. Despite closing her eyes and focusing on the sound, she couldn’t make out any words, so she quietly crept upstage toward the sound.  


“.... didn’t …. person to … seemed really nice, actually!” That was Gregory’s voice, cutting through the quiet. Ava paused behind the thick, heavy curtain that separated backstage and frontstage. There were small footlights which illuminated the stage just enough that she could make out the figures of the animatronics and what looked to be Gregory sitting in front of them. Ava couldn’t help the overwhelming curiosity which won over her disgust at creepily listening in to the boy’s conversation; she just had to know who he was talking to in the unlit performance hall. Luckily, she didn’t have to wait any time at all.

“How many times have I told you..?” An unsettlingly deep, gravely voice responded to the boy, and it took continuous effort for Ava to fight her immediate response to dart out in defense of him. “You can’t trust adults, and that goes doubly so for strangers, no matter how innocent they seem at first.” 

_‘Can’t trust adults?’_ Ava thought furiously. _‘You’re an adult! A creepy adult hanging out in the dark with an elementary schooler!'_ Red-hot blood pounded through her veins, and she fought with herself on whether to step or now or to wait. She huffed at herself internally, deciding to wait. She needed to know what this guy’s angle was - just how serious a situation she was in before jumping in head first. 

The man let out a long, belaboured sigh to add to the disappointment in his voice. Ava’s fist clenched around her penlight, and she silently cursed herself for not carrying anything more substantial with her that morning. After all, what was the use of a stun gun - or her revolver, for that matter - if it was still in her locker in the security office? 

Gregory’s small voice chimed out again, this time sounding pained and apologetic. “I didn’t mean to disappoint you.” 

Disgust blossomed in Ava’s throat. 

“You didn’t disappoint me, Gregory,” the rumbling voice softened, but Ava couldn’t help but rage at the manipulation she was hearing. “I just want you to be safe, and there are so many bad things that can happen to children if they trust the wrong adults, especially in places like this.” 

“I promise that I listened all the times you’ve told me that, but she really seemed different.” 

“They ALWAYS seem different, Gregory.” His words were hard, this time, and he let out a grumbling growl that crescendoed into a frustrated huff. 

It was that spike of anger that jolted Ava’s feet forward as she flung back the corner of the curtain she had been hiding behind to shine her light on the two people on the stage. 

Or single person, it would seem. 

Gregory looked up at her, his eyes wide as saucers and mouth slightly agape. The blonde security guard felt lost. The pen light’s beam swept the stage half a dozen times before she finally gave up and stared dazedly at the kid. 

“Gregory… Who were you talking to?” As she walked cautiously forward, she aimed her light behind her, then up at the animatronics which towered over both of them. The low stage lights were the only thing aside from her flashlight illuminating them, and the shadows they cast made her feel even smaller in comparison than she was already. She turned back to the kid, careful not to aim the beam at his eyes. She couldn’t look more lost if she tried. 

Gregory sputtered, then gestured aggressively at his ipad, which sat in front of him. “MY DAD!” he blurted out. “I got scared when you came out and hit the off button, so he’s not on there anymore. But I was facetiming my dad.” 

Ava blinked and looked around again. “In a… dark performance hall..?” It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him. What reason would he have to lie? It just didn’t sit right with her. 

He nodded adamantly. “Yes! I… I always facetime him in here! Because… mom and dad are divorced, and mom doesn’t like me talking to him, and I didn’t want anyone who works here to tell my mom on me.” 

The security guard couldn’t fathom how that must feel; her parents had never separated, not even briefly, and based on the sort of person Gregory’s mother had presented herself as the night before, Ava was sure she wasn’t the type to try to develop her child’s relationship with her estranged ex-spouse. If Hannah was so concerned with her child being out of sight, out of mind, then it was no wonder he went into hiding when doing anything his mother might disapprove of. 

Speaking of Gregory, he had let out a small, shaky breath before eeking out a nervous, “You aren’t going to tell my mom on me, are you? For being around the animatronics?” 

Ava shook her head vehemently. “No! No, of course not. But...” She reached for his hand. “You really can’t come in here around them, Gregory - even for something as important as talking to your dad.” 

Gregory reached up and allowed her to pull him to his feet. He looked to the floor abashedly. “They’re not dangerous. These ones are safe…” 

“I know they look harmless because they’re standing still, but look,” she gestured upwards and pointed the lightbeam still in her hand at the face of the bear. It seemed like he was looking straight at her, and she shivered. “Look how much bigger they are than me! And I’m twice your size! If they fell over, they would squish me like a bug, Gregory.” She frowned at him. “They’re just robots, so it isn’t like it would be on purpose, but their programming doesn’t tell them to watch out if kids get in the way.” 

There was a quiet mumble that Ava assumed came from Gregory. 

She paused and leaned down just a bit to hear him better. “Say again?” 

“... Their… programming does tell them to be careful if people are in danger.” 

Ava blinked. “It does?” She glanced back up at the animatronics, her eyes wide. 

“Sorry.” When Ava turned back to him, Gregory looked a little pale and was making firm eye contact with the stage. 

She shook her head adamantly again. “Gregory, you never have to apologize for letting me know when I’m wrong. I think it’s awesome that you know that much about the animatronics! I should probably do my research about these guys if I’m going to be guarding them, actually.” She was relieved when he seemed to relax. “Still, though, when they’re offline there’s always the chance they could topple over, right? Or you could trip in the dark back here, or any number of awful stuff! I would just feel better if you would stay closer to where we could help you if you needed us.” 

“Yes, Ma’am.” Gregory nodded, but Ava had a feeling she’d be having this talk with him again in the future. 

Well, she could deal with that then. “Let’s head back, okay Buddy?”

He nodded, and they began their trek through the shadowy backstage. He waved at the animatronics as he passed, and Ava gave a little wave, too. 

“Oh! By the way, I brought somebody’s beanie!” She pulled it from its spot stuffed most of the way in her pocket and tossed it over; he fumbled it, then clutched it with a grin. 

Immediately, he traded the security cap on his head (had he been wearing it that entire time? The stress of the situation must have made her overlook it) for the beanie, adjusting it to its usual, comfortable position on his head. “Yes! Thank you!” 

“Anytime, Greggo.” 


	4. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanny and the rest of the security team learn of dangerous tampering going on with the animatronics in storage at the pizzaplex. Ava steps in to care for a panicked Vanny and learns a lot about the history of the company in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Brief but fairly detailed mention of animal death during the security meeting; to avoid, when the ringing in Vanny's head starts, skip to " **4PM, Vanny's Living Room** "

**Thursday, February 25th, 12:43 PM**

Bleary didn’t begin to describe Vanny’s vision. Her eyelids stuck together like glue traps when she had tried to get her phone’s alarm to stop blaring that morning. Getting to work had been a blur. Even now, after the double shot of espresso she had hypocritically downed in her first fifteen minutes at her work computer, she was functioning at 15% capacity. In terms of consciousness, she would put herself at ‘barely’. She lost hours last night – and a lot, probably the whole night. When she was fully awake, she would wrack her mind to be sure that none of the memory fog was from lack of sleep. She had slept in her uniform (though probably not for long). 

She let out a deep sigh and noted the time so she could calculate the minutes remaining before she could go home and actually sleep – if William planned on letting her. Speaking of the devil, he was eerily silent; barely felt like a whisper at the back of her mind. Evidence suggested he had been very active last night, so he must have used up whatever energy he needed to do anything more than barely exist in the back of her subconscious. 

She couldn’t decide if she felt relieved at the momentary freedom or terrified at whatever he must’ve gotten up to. She wondered why he hadn’t informed her of what he was using her body for, though it wasn’t the first time this had happened. No, he had been “borrowing” her without acknowledging it for over a month now. When she questioned it, he denied it entirely. When she finally saw the latest of Luis’s emails (one of many he had apparently been sending which were subsequently erased by William), she needed some time to come to terms with the reality of the situation. That didn’t mean, though, that William was out ‘torturing’ last night – or so she desperately told herself. Hopefully she would never find out what he was up to. Hopefully it was something innocent, like hiring a hooker or robbing a bank. Hopefully. 

Currently, Vanny found herself trapped in a meeting about some updates to the security system: updates in response to a security breach that had occurred three weeks previous. Apparently, someone had used fake credentials to send a virus-containing packet to the company email of every Fazbear employee. A number of employees had unwittingly accepted the packet, which allowed the virus past the firewall and into the client used company-wide for important activities such as meeting planning, scheduling of customer-related events, and ordering of materials for animatronic production. Vanny was included in that “number of employees”, and her manager was intent on reminding her in front of the rest of the security team. 

Her manager had just finished a short tirade chastising her for the "mistake", in fact. 

Vanny took a breath. “Their credentials were vetted beforehand. We were expecting a patch to the security feed system that week, on top of that.” She huffed, arms crossed. She was exhausted by the subject at this point, and not just because Ava was also there to watch the embarrassing reprimand. (Of course, Ava seemed barely awake, so it was unlikely she was paying attention, anyway.) No, she was exhausted because the knowledge of what she had done - what she had been used for - had been plaguing her since she had let that trojan horse in three weeks ago.

(Though, if opening the virus-laden file pissed her manager off, she would love to see what shade of red he would turn if he found out who had been responsible for sending the emails in the first place.) 

Her manager was once again fussing about it, but she had already checked out mentally. She tried to steady her rapidly-beating heart. Thinking about the kind of changes she made to the system in the last couple of months made her sick to her stomach. Initially it was something she did eagerly; William had encouraged her to give him access to the client via his code - the code he had inhabited while trapped in the VR game, which she had once called Malhare but now felt the name Glitchtrap suited more. He said that if he had access to the depths of the client’s code, he could improve the capabilities of the animatronics and of the system overall. 

Vanny wasn’t so sure about that now. She wasn’t sure about anything he had said to her. 

“-sick, is what it was.” Someone was talking. They sounded disgusted. 

Vanny looked up. There was a buzzing in her head, and somewhere in the distance of her mind she could hear the beginning of that ringing which heralded William’s forceful control. 

“My dad was a hunter. He took me on hunts when I was a teenager. I’ve seen nasty, bloody shit before, but … that was fucked up.” The man speaking, one of the daytime guards, looked spooked. 

Ava’s voice cut through the ringing. Panic laced her voice. “It wasn’t Ralpho, was it?” 

“Ralpho?” The manager’s eyebrow raise was practically audible. 

“There is no way I could identify that poor creature,” the daytime guard (Robbie) shook his head, and Ava seemed to wilt. “Like… I hate to say this, but… it was in shreds. I feel for whoever has to clean that mess up.” 

The ringing in Vanny’s head was reaching a crescendo, and she felt herself slipping. She had been staring hard at her pants, counting the stitches to try to stay on the ground, but it wasn’t working. She glanced around the room. Five things she could see: the brown oak table, the green wallpaper, Ava’s blonde hair, her green eyes, her smattering of freckles. Four things she could feel: the air filling her lungs, the cool air conditioning against her skin, her heart beating in her chest, a tuft of fur caught on her pants. 

Robbie was speaking again. “The thing is, we did a scan of the Bonnie animatronic that did this. It has been offline since the security breach, so there’s no way the malware was what caused it to behave like this. Someone had to have gotten their hands on it and made these changes manually.” 

Vanny stared blankly at the black and brown fur she now held in her hand. Her vision was tunneling, and the ringing had grown to the bellow of a train’s whistle; she could feel the rumble of the powerful engine jettisoning past her, shaking her to her core. Her eyes caught on something peeking out just beneath the cuff of her uniform. Idly, she turned her palm upward, pushing her sleeve up to reveal harsh red scratches against her skin. The tunnel closed in that much more. 

Three things she could hear: In the darkness, she could hear a yowling, a hissing, a spitting. She could hear the clunking of metallic feet. She could hear her own voice, speaking out in words that weren’t her own. 

**“Come now, Bonnie, I built you quicker than that. Allow me to help. Now, show Father you can catch it.”**

Two things she could smell: the smell of tuna, spilled on her tank top earlier when her unsteady hands struggled to open the can; the smell of blood, thick in the air, still hot as it dribbled down the animatronic rabbit’s metal maw. 

One thing she could taste: hot, acidic bile and vomit, churning up her throat and mixing with blood from her bitten tongue. 

And then none of her senses picked up anything. 

“VANNY!”

**4PM, Vanny’s living room**

Warmth filled her hands; it was almost too hot, and the discomfort seemed to bring her even closer to reality. The smell of citrus filled her nostrils, that and warm air, and she took a deep, deep breath; her breath caught in her lungs, and she heard a sob fill her chest, choke its way up her throat, and spill out her mouth and down her eyes. Hot steam condensed on her face as she leaned over the porcelain cup clutched like a lifeline in her hands and mixed with boiling, salty tears that fell and fell and fell. She let herself wail there on her couch, and she was half-conscious of movement behind her, the numbed clattering of pots in the background, the soft comfort of a shawl draped over her shoulders and tucked against her, the near weightlessness of a box of tissues placed on her lap. She didn’t know how to acknowledge any of it, so she didn’t; she just cried. Time passed. By the time she’d emptied herself, her tea was lukewarm. A presence weighed down the couch one cushion down from her. Her head now only half-muddled, she had enough mind to be confused by the sudden effects of gravity on the presence so constantly with her. 

She glanced in the direction of that presence. “Will-..?” Not William; it was the blonde security guard from work, sitting a respectful distance away, eyes trained dutifully on her own tea. Vanny swallowed, wiped at the uncomfortable wetness on her cheeks, and opened her mouth to speak; but her words caught in her throat. 

Ava looked her way and smiled a gentle smile. “Did you ask something? I’m sorry, I was lost in thought.” Vanny shook her head. “You seem to be feeling better. I know I always do after a good cry.” 

“How did you get in my apartment?” The words were out of her mouth before she could even consider them. 

Ava cringed. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I sort of borrowed your keys. You started having a panic attack during the security meeting, and I – well, I used to have a girlfriend who had panic attacks pretty often, so I knew what to do. You just needed to come home and rest until you settled. You were dissociating really bad, so I just drove you here. Your address is on your license, and you handed me the keys. I put them on the table by the door; I hope that’s where you usually keep them.” She glanced down, noticing something, then spoke again. “Your tea’s cold. Let me pour you some fresh.” 

“Why are you doing this?” Vanny’s mind was still in pieces; she knew she wasn’t asking the right questions, but they were all that were coming to her. Still, she let Ava take her cup when she reached over. 

The blonde stood and began walking back to the kitchen. The apartment was an open floor plan, except the bathroom and the bedroom, so Vanny had no trouble hearing her when she replied, “Like I said, one of my exes had anxiety issues. Everyone else at the security meeting seemed at a loss, so I handled things.” 

“So … just because you could..?”

“Yes?” There was the sound of water pouring from a kettle, then, “You needed help, and I knew how to fix it.” Her sock-covered feet padded across the tiled floor until she leaned over the couch back to hand the hot cup to Vanny. “I think you’re still a little out of it. Do you have anything else that helps you? You took one of your Xanax when we got here. Do you need another half?” 

Vanny blinked up at the other woman, watching the genuine concern on her face curiously. She swallowed, feeling her stomach twist into knots. “Springs.” 

“Excuse me?” Ava blinked. 

“I forgot about Springs!” Vanny hopped up, sloshing the hot tea just a bit onto her hand. She cursed and licked away the tea as she beelined to her bedroom. After a moment and some quiet cooing from the room, she reemerged with a bundle in one arm and the tea in her other hand. Seeming perked up, she plopped back onto the couch, leaning her back against the arm rest and gesturing for Ava to have a seat as well. After a long drink of the warm tea, she placed her mug down and unwrapped the bundle. 

Ava watched with wide eyes as a straw-colored ball of fur peeked out from a pastel blanket. “A baby rabbit..!” she whispered, her hands flying up to hide her gleeful smile. 

Vanny chuckled. “Not quite! This old man’s a Netherland Dwarf! Almost five years old, aren’t ya, Springy?” 

“An elderly baby!” Ava’s whisper turned into a squeal, and Springy’s whiskers twitched with interest. “I love his name! Why Springy?” 

“Oh, after Spring Bonnie. I know he’s not as popular as a lot of the other rabbit models, but he was Mr. Afton’s first successful animatronic, so I…” She trailed off, embarrassment blooming on her cheeks as she averted her eyes by focusing intently on her rabbit’s fuzzy head. 

The embarrassment in Vanny’s voice was mirrored in Ava’s as the blonde mumbled out a response. “Sorry, I... don’t really get the reference.” She looked away, wincing. “I have a feeling you’re a pretty knowledgeable Fazbear employee, but I know pretty much nothing about the company or the characters.” 

Vanny’s eyes widened. “Seriously? You know nothing about Freddy or any of them?” 

“That’s the bear, right?” The cute, hopeful lilt in Ava’s voice both caused Vanny’s stomach to flip and made her want to tear out her hair. 

“Yes, he’s the bear!” she playfully emphasized, teasing exasperation growing on her face. “This is ridiculous. You absolutely can’t be employed with our company if you don’t even know the original gang! Well,” she bobbed her head from side to side a bit, considering the nuances of the company’s history, “technically the best-known gang which put the company on the map. The literal original “gang” of two was one honey-colored bear and a springtime yellow rabbit named Spring Bonnie. Hence,” she picked up her fuzzy rabbit just under the arms and gave him a loving snuggle, “Springy.” 

When Vanny looked up, she was caught off guard by the enthused gleam in Ava’s meadow-green eyes. “I was right. You DO know everything about this company.”

Vanny rolled her eyes, helpless to the grin growing on her face. “Well, I HAVE only been William Afton’s biggest fan since I was eight years old.” Reality caught up with her for a moment, and her stomach churned. “Or I was,” she mumbled quietly. 

Ava must not have heard her quiet addendum. “He was the original manager, wasn’t he? The one who started the company?” 

“Well, yes and no. He and a gentleman named Henry Emily co-owned and managed both the original location, Fredbear’s Diner, and Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, which is the one you’ve probably heard more about.” Vanny took a breath. “I’ll be honest: I don’t think I can allow you to keep working there unless you get a full rundown on the brand, Ms. Andros.” 

The blonde’s cheeks dimpled as she fought back a smile. “Well, fortunately I have the professional with the foremost knowledge of the subject in front of me now.” 

“Fortunate indeed,” Vanny agreed with an exaggerated wink before sipping her tea. 

And that is how the two began a four-hour journey into the intricacies of the Fazbear brand, its history and rumors, mascots, impact on pop culture, and even the social niceties involved in working with the staff of its local branch. By the end, both women felt confident that Ava’s working knowledge of the company was sufficient to continue her work as a security guard there. 

Vanny was surprised that William still hadn’t reared his ghostly head (after all, he had always presented himself when his company came up in Vanny’s conversations before), but she had a sneaking suspicion that his actions last night had been almost more than his form could stand. With any luck, she thought, he would be gone for quite some time. Maybe in that time she could undo some of the damage she had done in allowing his malware into the Fazbear system in the first place. 

Caught up in the thought, she couldn’t help bringing the topic up to Ava. “What do you think someone would be trying to achieve … by doing what they did to that Bonnie animatronic? By making it … attack that cat?” 

Ava’s expression morphed into deep concern when she looked over. 

Vanny hadn’t noticed her hands shaking until she felt the warmth of Ava’s palm steadying them. 

“Are you sure you want my honest answer?” 

Closing her eyes, Vanny gave a swift nod.

The blonde let out a deep sigh. “Honestly? I’ve worked security for a long time. Nine out of ten times, it’s just kids messing with machines for some kind of personal reason, like a middle finger to society, I guess?” She took in a sharp breath. “But sometimes, it’s someone trying to do harm. And if it’s someone on the inside, I’m more worried about that chance. Those animatronics are meant to put on shows for kids. After hearing that someone hacked one of the animatronics to do… well, that, it makes me pretty nervous to think what else they could be programmed to do.” 

Of course. Although she knew that, Vanny had wished for some other, more harmless explanation from the blonde. She had wanted to fight the obvious truth, the glaring fact that William was not the innocent man she had always believed him to be, so badly that she had ignored any evidence until it got this far. Too far. Now an innocent animal was dead, and William had proven to himself and to Vanny that he had the means to take even more innocent life. Knowing the rumors, the same rumors that Vanny had also ignored her entire life, William wouldn’t be satisfied with kitty cats, not when he had access to one of the largest children’s entertainment facilities in the state. 

Contrary to the heart-bursting panic that had overwhelmed her just hours before, accepting this piece of dread-inducing knowledge left her feeling hollow and exhausted. Vanny took a deep breath and closed her eyes again, this time leaning completely against Ava’s sturdy shoulder. She counted her breaths to ground herself again. In a moment, she would let Ava go home, and then Vanny would plan how to undo everything she had done so wrong; for now, though, she just wanted to breathe, and she felt safe with Ava by her side. 

She didn’t mean to fall asleep. 

**Friday, February 26th, Snowing**

It was surreal, the feeling of waking up in her bed in the middle of the night without an alarm to rush her to work. An odd atmosphere Vanny couldn’t put her finger on lingered like a fog over the room as memories from the previous day developed themselves slowly in her mind, much like photographs hanging in a darkroom. Her bedroom wasn’t unlike a darkroom itself; a soft red glow from the bright neon LAUNDROMAT sign next door filtered in through her frozen windows, casting a dreamlike hue on the room. She waved her hand over her phone on the bedside table. 2:21 AM. Having such an odd schedule cast her circadian rhythm into desynchrony, but even so, she usually wasn’t this awake before 4 AM. Thoughtlessly, she let out a sigh and gazed out at the falling snow. 

**“Our fortune seems to grow and grow.”**

Of course. Vanny felt foolish for imagining he would stay gone for long. Slowly, her gaze trailed to the corner of her bed, where William-in-his-Glitchtrap-form perched, legs to his chest and staring out the window. His magenta eyes glowed hypnotically in the dim light. Suddenly the reddish hue of the room gave off a much less dreamlike feel; despite the freezing temperatures, Vanny briefly felt as if she were boiling alive. 

After a moment, the feeling subsided, and William turned those burning eyes at her. He smiled. **“Don’t you think so, Dear?”**

Vanny felt herself nodding even before she considered his question despite her disagreement. Perhaps things were looking up for him, but for her - Ugh, there was that ringing, and on second thought, things did seem to be looking up. She just had to ignore the unfortunate happenings at work. After all, she really liked this girl, and Ava seemed to like her, too. A cautious smile grew at her lips, and she nodded more firmly this time. 

**“And you know why this is so fortuitous, I’m sure.”** His statement hid a question. 

Her lips jumped to answer him. “Yes, Mr. Afton, of course.” She knew what he wanted to hear: how this would benefit his plans. “The more she trusts me, the more access I can have to the facility when she’s on duty without rousing suspicion.” She thought further, then added, “Not to mention, if we become close enough, I may be able to rely on her for an alibi if the need ever arises.” 

**“Thinking ahead,”** William sounded impressed, and Vanny grew frustrated at the part of her that leapt for joy. **“Though I was considering how her companionship might act as a balm for your mental health, Vanny. You prefer to work alone, as I did; I understand the desire. However, I worry loneliness may wear on you.”**

_‘If only I could ever be alone,’_ she lamented to herself. 

He continued. **“Your spirit was higher tonight than I’ve ever felt it. Perhaps the two of you should be friends for friendship sake, as well as for your primary objective? It would be good for you.”** There was something warming about his concern. It reminded her of how she felt before, when she believed he was just a genius robotics technician trapped in code. When she believed he was someone who should be saved. Despite her unease, she couldn’t disagree with anything he had said, though. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she peeked a pale yellow post-it stuck to her bedside table. The writing was in slanted script. It read, _“Sorry for leaving without saying goodbye! Had to go in for my shift and didn’t want to wake you. Let’s hang out again soon, just in better circumstances next time! - Ava.”_

After a moment, Vanny nodded, turning away from William to lay her head back down onto her pillow. He had remarked that Ava’s presence in her life would be good for her, and she couldn’t help but agree - this time, sincerely. A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. 

“Yes, Mr. Afton, I think you’re right.” 


	5. Simpler Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story pauses briefly as we look back at the months leading up to Vanny and Ava's first meeting, answering the questions of what lead Vanny to her career in security and how she and William came into each other's lives in the first place.

**November 5th, 2020**

Vanny wasn’t trained for this - for debugging virtual games. It wasn’t like game design was her passion or anything. Gaming of this sort wasn’t what Fazbear Entertainment was about - well, not what it was supposed to be about, anyway. What happened to the old faithfuls: the arcades? The tangible, solid metal, the endless cords and clacking buttons, the piles of tickets pouring out not after finally, _finally_ landing that skeeball shot. That was real; not whatever this virtual reality mumbo jumbo was supposed to be. 

Frankly, Vanny hated the idea of helping the game at first. She had heard all about the game from fellow employees hyping the idea. The VR game was the company’s attempt at dispelling the awful rumors and lies which had circulated for so many years about the brand and its main progenitor, William Afton; but, in Vanny’s opinion, the acknowledgement of these heinous rumors only added fuel to the fire, only served to bolster the conspiracy theorists hell-bent on tarnishing the name of one of the world’s foremost robotics experts to date - and after his tragic disappearance, at that. 

Disgusting; that’s what Vanny thought of the accusations that had been sent Mr. Afton’s way. She had idolized the man since childhood, and no cruel whispers or slanderous slurs could change her faith in him. It was low just how intent so many were to bring down another person just because of their success, especially a person who had devoted his life to the joy of children and families, as William had; especially a person who had lost so much of his own family, as he had. 

First, William Afton had lost his youngest son in an animatronic-related accident which had nearly destroyed him, or so his business partner had said (and who would know better than Mr. Emily?) Then, only a few years later, his only daughter was lost in a similar accident despite the safety measures he had implemented since the first tragedy. After that, Mr. Afton had become a recluse, and Vanny understood why. Just imagining the loss of one’s beloved family was painful enough, but to actually suffer through it? That wasn’t even to mention how guilty William must have felt that his children suffered at the hands of his own creations - and yet people still had the gall to insinuate such a tragic man would be behind the disappearances and deaths of other children after what he had already gone through! Just the thought made Vanny’s blood boil. 

Now the company was trying to profit off of those rumors under the guise of “dispelling” them, but Vanny became more disgusted with each minigame she completed. What was this? Animatronics chasing after the player, mentions of blood and gore and missing children, hauntings? It was a middle finger not only to those poor children and their families but to the Afton family, as well. This game was going to be like gasoline to the conspiracy pyre on which William’s legacy had been slowly burning for decades, and it turned Vanny’s stomach. 

No, the VR “experience” was the last thing Vanny wanted to be involved with, but she agreed because she was getting nowhere near an engineering position in the security department, and she needed an “in”. She needed connections, something, anything that would get her out of security and into robotics; anything that would finally allow her to do what she had always wanted. 

She had wanted to work with Fazbear Entertainment since she was twelve years old. The company brought so much joy to so many children, and though she hadn’t eaten at one of the establishments until she had already gotten legal emancipation from her parents and was paying her own bills (working as a waitress at one of those very locations, in fact). She had built her dreams on the foundation of bright, loud, family-friendly fun advertised on nearly every tv station and on every billboard in the city. As a child, that joyful atmosphere was all she ever wanted to be a part of, to build, to continue for other kids like her.

Of course, children are told they can grow up to be anything they want. Vanny learned early on that wasn’t quite true. College tuition wasn’t cheap, and tuitions weren’t handed out like candy to people like her, especially. Without a reliable family to fall back on, the then fully emancipated seventeen year old couldn’t afford living and studying at any of the prestigious programs whose diploma the Fazbear company’s robotics department expected potential hires to have before they would ever offer an interview. After all, Fazbear Entertainment hired only the best to follow in Mr. Afton’s shoes. 

Sometimes, though, one must improvise to get what they want, and Vanny had learned to do just that. Diplomas weren’t the only way to get into a company; connections with the right people could be just as helpful. That’s why she had gotten a job in the security department in 2016 despite her intentions of working in robotics. That’s why she had agreed to help with a VR game the likes of which she wished she could wipe from existence.

On the wind-swept day of November 5th, 2020, though, she wished she could go back in time and shake her own hand for agreeing to be a part of the game’s development. After all, working with the game was how she met her hero. 

William Afton had been caught in the code. 

It didn’t take long for her to realize there was something wrong with the game. Sure, the game itself was creepy; it was a horror game, after all. But no, that wasn’t it. It was the uncomfortable feeling that Vanny was being watched - not just occasionally but any time she had the VR headset on. She worried she was going crazy after the fifth time whipping the headset off in paranoia and finding herself alone, safe in the testing room. As long as the headset was off, the itching feeling stopped; it was only when she was playing the game that she felt eyes on her, scrutinizing her every movement, her every choice in-game. It wasn’t long before she actually saw those eyes, fixated on her like glowing magenta spotlights catching her in their paralyzing stare from the darkness, always out of her reach, never looking away. At first, she thought it to be a game feature. When she was halfway through the gameplay, she mentioned it to another debugger, Clara, who apparently hadn’t come across it. 

“Maybe a random event, like something only a certain percentage of players get on their play-throughs?” Clara had offered. 

Vanny supposed that made sense, but when she progressed further and the glowing eyes became more solid, then were not just eyes but a shadowy figure, and then when the shadowy figure grew into a gesturing, rabbit-suited figure - well, when that happened, Vanny couldn’t shake that there was something more going on; especially when she asked one of the game developers if she was supposed to do something with the rabbit to further the storyline and he replied that there was no such creature in the game. 

Finally, one long day after hours of debugging, she turned to the taunting hare and screamed, “What do you want?” 

It paused its waving. 

Her heart stopped. 

The air felt colder on her skin suddenly. From the darkness of the doorway the rabbit was standing in, Vanny could hear an echoing sound, like wind through a train tunnel. There was some sound, like a groaning from someone on one end of the tunnel making its way all the way to the other opening, distorted by distance. The groaning sounded not just like guttural, pained emissions of a tortured creature - but also like a word, some word Vanny couldn’t parse. It repeated itself, and Vanny stepped back. The rabbit stepped forward, and the Fazbear employee was struck by the sudden memory that she could pull the VR headset off and be free; so she did. 

Her chest heaved as she sucked air into her panicked lungs, eyes boring into the headset she had tossed onto the floor to clatter several feet away, afraid that if she looked away, the unsettling creature would crawl out of the headset like so many spiders from their egg-sack. After her heart had stilled, she glanced at the clock on the far wall; 7:30 PM. She must have been playing longer than she thought. She decided she had obviously played too long, perhaps so long her mind was playing tricks on her; perhaps it was best for her to finish up for the day and return again tomorrow. She would have to put the headset back on to save the recording to report any bugs she had found during that session. With nervousness bubbling in her gut, she slipped it over her eyes. 

There he was in front of her. Vanny gasped, felt herself falling backwards as she reached back up to remove the visor again, but her arm stopped; she glanced down to see the eerie rabbit mascot’s hand gripped tight to her forearm, holding it down. Her gut flipped in her stomach as panic shot like ice through her veins. 

**“... Ooout… Let me … ”**

The figure reached with its free hand and tugged off its mascot head. Vanny felt like she was seeing a ghost. Probably, because she was. Staring back at her was the troubled visage of William Afton. 

**“Please,”** he choked out, **“let me out.”**

It took a few weeks after that for Vanny to, with the help of her digitized and very trapped mentor, release him from his prison of ones and zeros.

**December 25th, 2020, 6:30 PM, Snowing**

Snow flitted downward from the cloud-strewn gray sky and past endless city lights onto sidewalks coated in crystalline white. Each flake reflected the twinkling, multicolored microcosms of celebratory lights covering the quiet streets. Even the tired retail workers returning home from their holiday shifts watched the silent white precipitation in awe as they passed windows to homes garnished in wreathes and full of families settling down for Christmas dinner. The hushed sound of cars tossing slush filled the air. It was peaceful. The picture-perfect Christmas. 

Of course, Vanny wouldn’t know; she was in the new pizzaplex security office, face near-buried in the glow of the huge monitor before her. Her drooping eyes scanned over lines upon countless lines of code. She scratched idly at her head. 

**“It’s been twelve hours, dear.”** Mr. Afton - or his spectre, just barely there but always present - rested on the spare computer chair which Vanny had dragged next to hers so that he could point out errant lines of code in the animatronic’s programming (which she had been quietly helping with now that he had helped her get access to the files.) He held himself as he had in life - properly, like a gentleman, but relaxed, not wound up tight like so many biographies had tried to portray him. He had a soft voice, a gentle tone with a genteel british lilt, and he always looked at Vanny with pride in his cheerful magenta eyes. She didn’t dwell on it too much, but it was everything she had always wanted. He repeated himself quietly, **“Twelve, Vanny.”**

“Has it?” She didn’t look his way to grumble her response, but she rubbed her left eye and huffed out a sigh. 

**“Quite.”** A meaningful pause, then, **“I wasn’t planning on mentioning it, but you haven’tacknowledged what day it is, either.”**

“... I haven’t?” She returned somewhat overzealously to digging through code. 

**“Not everyone celebrates the holiday, but it seems as though you despise it.”**

Vanny let out another grumbley groan. “I don’t hate Christmas. I… just have work to do.” She stared at the dark screen for another moment before letting out an exasperated sigh and tabbing over to another program. Professionally-photographed headshots popped up on the screen. “I have to look over the applications we got in for the new security guard position for the pizzaplex.” 

**“Your manager won’t be hiring them?”** Vanny tried not to jolt; she still wasn’t used to William’s spirit popping from one place to the next. He leaned over her shoulder to take a look at the screen, and she relaxed.

“Well, actually, Luis was tasked with it, apparently - but he got overwhelmed with the planning for the grand reopening, so I said I would do it for him. I mean, I’m going to have to be working with them, right? It’s -” she fought back a yawn, “It’s only reasonable that I get a say in who comes on.” Then the yawn won. She rubbed at her eyes again. 

William nodded. **“Only reasonable.”** He made a small, thoughtful noise. **“Perhaps this could wait, though. After all, this is an important decision, and all important decisions should be made with a fully-rested mind.”**

Vanny grumbled again. “It’ll only take a minute.” She felt a chill, and William’s hand was on her shoulder. 

**“You’re so like me… Violet always said I overworked myself, too.”** The wistful look in his eyes broke Vanny’s heart. 

“That’s what she said in the interviews. Mrs. Afton really tried hard to find you, but I’m sure you know that.” 

**“If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be to not work so very hard on my job; to work harder on myself, on my family. And Vanny, my dear, you’re like a daughter to me. I can’t have you making the same mistakes that I did.”**

Vanny didn’t know what to say. 

**“Rest. Just for a moment.”**

She nodded dumbly. William held out his spectral hand, and though he couldn’t pull her up, she understood the gesture. She stood and followed him to the small, comfortable couch in the back of the room. 

“Just for like… an hour. I want to get that done before I go home.”

He looked at her with fondness. **“Of course.”**

Once she had fallen asleep, he returned to the computer. Though he couldn’t interact with it physically, perhaps what he could do was even better for his purposes. 

One quite clever thing about being a spirit: William could feel the life of those around him – when it dimmed, when it roared – and that was quite useful for telling when Vanny’s lifeforce quieted. When it was quiet, it was weaker, and then it was easier to make use of her body; but for now, William only felt for an indicator that sleep had overtaken her so that she wouldn’t notice as he stepped over to the computer. Once he felt her quiet, he returned to the computer. 

His magenta eyes (magenta as a defect caused by some aspect of his current remnant-induced immortality) lazily perused the photographs still lined up on the screen; his eyebrows furrowing in concentration as he attempted to glean information from just the prospective guards’ faces. He sighed. Though he couldn’t interact with the computer or mouse (or anything, truthfully) physically in his remnant form, perhaps what he could do was even better for his purposes; he placed his hand on the system unit tower and in a half-instant had found his way to the file containing the applicants’ information. In the next half-instant he had “downloaded” the information contained therein to his memory. 

Idly, he perused their curriculum vitae, tossing out anyone he deemed “too qualified” – i.e. anyone he felt too capable, too likely to get in the way of his plans. As he did so, he sent their applications into the trash bin – then deleted them entirely for good measure. One had worked at MIT – she was definitely out. Another had completed an internship with a government security office; no, not him, absolutely not. (If only he had realized how large and influential his start-up pizzeria would eventually become to draw in such candidates! He felt more than a little pride.) He pulled up their pictures, matching their backgrounds with their faces. Eventually, he pulled up an image of a blonde woman with a much more genuine smile than the others’ more professional visages. 

Andros, Vanessa; that was her name. She was a young, inexperienced security guard who had never left the city, never had any large-scale security jobs or advanced training. Oh, there was no way this woman could land this job; William could scarcely believe that her application had made its way into this list, in fact. A Christmas miracle, perhaps? Unadulterated glee filled his eyes, a childish grin spreading across his face. Perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. This woman would do so, so nicely. It just took half an instant more to formulate an email from Vanny’s account detailing this Andros woman as “her” choice for the position – after William did some editing the blonde’s curriculum vitae to contain more a compelling history of professional experience that couldn’t be argued by Vanny’s higher-ups, of course. 

Satisfied with his work, he closed out of the program and returned to Vanny’s side. Briefly, he forced control of her limbs to pick her jacket from her chair and wrap it around her before returning to her spot on the sofa and releasing her. Perhaps this may have been what it would’ve been like to see Elizabeth grow to adulthood. 

He decided not to think about it long. 


End file.
